Graffiti artist, chased by police, jumps in river, dies

Fellow taggers spray-paint mural in his memory

March 10, 2010|By Joel Hood and Liam Ford, Tribune reporters

Friends of a graffiti artist who died after plunging into the Chicago River in a chase with police paid tribute the best way they knew how Wednesday: spray-painting a mural in his memory on a brick wall behind a Radio Shack in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood.

"Just because he was a graffiti artist doesn't mean he was a bad person," A.J. Harris said of his friend Jason Kitchekeg, 26, a popular presence in the city's close-knit graffiti and tagging community, a ragtag collection of teens and young adults celebrated as artists in some circles and derided as vandals in others.

"He wasn't out being malicious or trying to hurt anyone," Harris said. "Sadly, he went out doing what he loved."

Kitchekeg, a Mokena resident, was one of three men police chased off for spray-painting an abandoned building on South Ashland Avenue around 6 p.m. Tuesday. Officers caught two of the men, but Kitchekeg, who was given probation a day earlier for another tagging incident, escaped capture by jumping into the river near the 2800 block of South Ashland, police said.

Aided by a helicopter, the police marine unit and Fire Department personnel worked for about 30 minutes to rescue the man after he was spotted in the river near Bubbly Creek. Firefighters pulled Kitchekeg from the water, and he was rushed to Stroger Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead, according to hospital spokesman Marcel Bright.

"He loved art, and he loved to paint," said Kitchekeg's wife, Kamila Gamachova. "It wasn't that he wanted to break the law, this was just something he loved doing."

Court records show Kitchekeg had pleaded guilty several times to graffiti-related charges. On Monday, he was sentenced to one year of probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor damage to property charge.

On Tuesday night, Kitchekeg joined friends to paint a large abandoned factory — a former paint manufacturing plant — in an industrialized area near the Stevenson Expressway that police say is a magnet for artists who like to chronicle urban decay.

Though his family lived in Mississippi, Kitchekeg was a longtime resident of the Uptown area and, Harris said, "had so much love and compassion for Chicago." Friends described him as a jack-of-all-trades who had difficult times in his life. Gamachova said he worked as a deckhand on boats but had been unemployed recently.

"I'm 100 percent certain he could swim," she said. "The water must have been too cold or something. I have no idea what happened."

At the time of his death, Gamachova and Kitchekeg were living with an elderly woman they cared for in Mokena. Gamachova said they would have celebrated their one-year anniversary later this month.

About two dozen friends and fellow taggers gathered at North Broadway and West Balmoral Avenue on Wednesday afternoon to paint a mural in Kitchekeg's memory. With the owner's permission, they selected the side of a business in view of the passing CTA Red Line.

"I can't believe he's gone," Gamachova said. "He was just out doing what he loved."

Tribune reporters William Lee and Andrew L. Wang contributed to this report.